Unending
by Pyralis Anacreon
Summary: 20 things you really have to understand about SG-1. The people, the things they did, the ones they saved and lost, and the legend they left behind.


**Twenty Things You Have to Understand About SG-1**

**THE TEAM**

1 Colonel Jack O'Neil made an exception for Daniel. If the archaeologist said something was important, Jack was willing to listen. It took the rest of the SGC a lot longer to learn this.

2 Samantha Carter had a bad habit of falling in love with her COs even before Jack. But he was the worst, and the longest, and the strongest, and she thought if one of them had just had the courage or stupidity to act on it they could've been great together.

3 Teal'c never told anyone why he had believed Jack the first time he said he could save them all, because the reason doesn't sound good enough now, after the action. But in that moment, with the words I can save these people ringing in the air between them, Teal'c found something to believe in. Something that let him throw off the comforting, oppressive weight of slavery and face the terrifying responsibility of freedom with eyes wide open. He'll never think of Jack O'Neil as anything less than an equal, for that.

4 When Jack finally left the team for good, Daniel almost didn't know how it could go on without him. SG-1 was characterized by Jack's snarky comments, Sam's brains, Teal'c's strength, and Daniel's ridiculous amounts of empathy. So Daniel took up the mantle of irreverent childishness and pretended he didn't see the looks Sam and Teal'c gave him every time he used one of Jack's lines or expressions.

**THE MISCONCEPTIONS**

5 Everyone at the SGC knew how many times Daniel has died and Ascended and come back. They joked that he may as well be immortal. Even the System Lords recognize him as irritatingly unkillable, like all of SG-1. What very few people seemed to remember was that Jack had died too many times to count under the care of Ba'al, and Jack liked it that way.

6 They were close, but very rarely hung out outside of the base. They went for dinners and once took a disastrous vacation together, but whenever SG-1 was together, doom dogged their steps and they knew it.

**THE LITTLE THINGS**

7 Jack hated how little regard his team had for their own lives, ignoring his own death wish, and blamed himself for collecting such righteous, good people. If they were bad guys, he'd never have gone gray so fast.

8 Daniel was used to being able to understand people, but he never could get a lock on Jack. Sometimes he thought the Colonel was a kindred spirit, and other times he wanted nothing more than to strangle him.

9 Teal'c didn't show it much, but Earth culture frustrated him. It seemed as if they were trying to raise pacifists and warmongers at the same time. It was vicious and cruel on one side and calm kindness on another. He thought they needed to pick something and stick with it.

10 There was nothing Sam hated more than the feeling of her life in danger. She hated it almost as much as she loved the rush.

11 Every single time he hears Jack call his team his 'kids', the child in Daniel - the one who lost his parents and spent most of his life believing love to be a lie - near about screams with the joy of it. The rest of him pretends to be annoyed and says something along the lines of not being a child anymore, thank you Jack.

**STARGATE COMMAND**

12 There's a six-month period, when a person starts going through the gate, where their chances of dying are at about 75%. At the end of those six months, it drops down to a much more reasonable 40%. When a Stargate team is on a mission involving SG-1, their odds of dying skyrocket again.

13 Despite the fatality rate, there's never a shortage of people willing to go through the gate. It's not always the allure of other worlds, or new technology, or being involved in something that's never going to see the light of day. There's just something about the gate that's unforgettable, that 'what if', and if you don't take every chance it gives you you'll spend the rest of your life remembering, and wondering, if it would have been worth it.

14 It always is.

**THE LIES**

15 The Stargate belongs to the countries who know of its existence.

16 The military is in charge of the SGC.

17 Stargate personnel can be controlled by orders coming from a building miles and miles away.

**THE TRUTH**

18 The Stargate belongs to the people who travel through it and the people who use it, who have seen an event horizon and felt that little thrill of the unknown on the other side.

19 SG-1 is in charge of the SGC, and people are only just starting to figure that out.

20 Stargate Personnel have found something bigger than themselves and bigger than the Pentagon to believe in, and nothing can take that away.


End file.
